Sacrifice?

Sacrificial love is a concept that has become foreign in much of our culture today. With so many individuals focusing on their own interest, agenda, and ambitions, it is not surprising that the notion of sacrificial love is disappearing. It is being replaced by anger, rage, lust, sensuality, strife, jealousy, rivalries, dissension, division, and envy, etc. Our society is being transformed into a place where the attention is directed on self and self-fulfillment. The “what’s in it for me” culture is taking over and people are showing no mercy, kindness, or love to those around them. Many of us today are not willing to stand and demonstrate any kind of sacrificial love toward our neighbors (basically the cancel culture of today). Even harder is showing sacrificial love to those whom we disagree with and more difficult toward our enemies.

How do you define sacrificial love? Maybe it’s loving our friends and family, loving a spouse or life partner, donating money to the local charity, or a strong affection for another? The list could go on and on. But we need to think about what it means today. Understanding and displaying sacrificial love in a time of turmoil, disruption, political upheaval, and pain, says a lot about who we are as people. For example, are you willing to give up your finance, your property, and potentially your life to fight for what we believe in? Or are we only willing to sit in a warm house and complain about those who are driving our great nation in a direction that will destroy our way of life forever? Do we love those around us enough to engage, speak, share our values and beliefs, and agree to disagree, all the while being patient and speaking the truth in love?

Since our nation has been struggling with its identity for some time, we should look at the sacrificial love that our founding fathers demonstrated for all of us (thus, setting an example to be followed). With this said, we see that the founding fathers came from very diverse backgrounds, and biases. But, one thing they had in common, was their love for this nation, and their willingness to sacrifice all for freedom. The Bill of Rights was critical to them and they fought long and hard to ensure that it was written in stone for the founding of this country. They wanted to make sure that we as a nation, as a people, were free from a state-driven tyranny. For example, if we look at Patrick Henry, we can see that one of our founding fathers was willing to sacrifice all for his love for freedom and this new nation (America).

Patrick Henry (1775). It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

This quote shows us that our founding fathers were ready to die (sacrifice all) for this new nation and the principles it was founded on. They loved freedom, and wanted everyone in America to have the same rights and freedom granted by natural law, the principles of Christianity, and the creator. What can we learn from these brave men and women of the past about sacrificial love? First, we need to ask, what are you willing to sacrifice for your freedom? Specifically, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion? Anything? Or everything? This is a question we should be asking ourselves as we see our freedoms being taken away gradually in America (right before our eyes). With all this said, what should our Christian response be? What does Christ teach us about sacrificial love? Well, we need to show a Christ like love to those around us. Let’s start by looking at the two greatest commandments in scripture.

Matthew 22:34:40 (ESV). But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

How do we take what Jesus says in the scripture and apply into our daily life, when anger, rage, hypocrisy, disappointment, and a lack of love rule our current culture and society? Well, we need to take it all in, pray, read the bible, and get out in society and engage. Not out of anger or rage, but out of love for all the lost souls that are driving our nation in a direction that goes against our Constitution, Bill of Rights, Christian values, and freedom (the reason why God made America great in the first place)! We can look at 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (ESV) for solid advice.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

This is a difficult path to follow. Nonetheless, it is what we are called to do. Most people today do not want to sacrifice all to love Christ and others, but how else are people going to learn about Christianity and Christ? If we as believers are not willing to engage with those who disagree with us, and meet them where they are, with love, patience, and a desire to share the Gospel, WHO WILL? These people are hurting, their souls are empty, they are full of sin, and they are crying out for help. Who is going to help them? If we do not stand in the gap like Moses did in the old testament, then who will? God has called us to love sacrificially, to help the poor, the widows, and to share the gospel to all people! He has called us to go out and create disciples of all nations.

Matthew 28-16:20 (ESV). Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

I hope each one of us can be convicted by the Holy Spirit to get out of our comfort zone. We need to engage with society, those we disagree with and those we dislike, and share the love of Christ! Remember Luke 15:7 (ESV) “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. all the angel in heave rejoice”.

Reflection of the day -

Proverbs 27:17 (ESV). As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man.